3 Things Mobile Marketers Are Doing Wrong

There's going to be an impending explosion of mobile marketing—it's going to blow up. This is a widely accepted fact. Google says mobile search will surpass desktop search by the end of 2013 or possibly 2014. BIA/Kelsey says mobile marketing will account for a massive increase in phone calls to businesses within the next 14 months (roughly double). Mobile marketing spend will increase by five to six times in the next six years.

That said, mobile marketing is still relatively nascent and mobile marketers are making mistakes. Here are the 3 biggest:

1. Wrong metrics. By now it's accepted fact and very old news that mobile marketing produces phone calls. Google and xAd both say that more than 50% of mobile searches result in phone calls. BIA/Kelsey says that by 2016 mobile marketing will account for 70 billion phone calls (20 billion today). There will be a massive increase in phone calls to every business in America.

They should be tracking metrics surrounding phone calls. There is rich, rich data in phone calls that is being unused by marketers.

2. Bad mobile pages. A mobile landing page is very different than a regular landing page. There shouldn't be a ton of form fields or content on a mobile landing page. Rather, there should be a 'Call Now' button, a tap-able phone number, maybe a map lookup feature and—if you're feeling lucky—one form field to fill out. Mobile landing pages should be simple, simple, simple. Less is better. Less is more. Brevity is king.

3. Take Google's word on measurement. Google charges mobile click-to-call advertisers for every call their ads generate. The problem is this: Not all “taps” from a mobile device result in phone calls and not all phone calls are real calls. Some are junk calls. Some are accidental clicks. Some are not qualified leads. Our research shows that only about 50% of the calls Google says are calls are actually calls. Wow. And less than 15% are good, qualified leads.

The bottom line: If you're conducting a mobile click-to-call campaign (and you should) don't rely on Google to tell you how well it's working. You're going to need a tool that can decipher good calls from bad calls for you.